Politico: The Man Who Broke The Middle East
- Thread starter Tsing Tao
- Start date
A 2006 graduate of the U.S. Army War College at Carlisle Barracks and also of one of the infantry courses at Fort Benning in the early 1980s.
Right, so, based on historical evidence, is the Middle East now more or less of a safe haven for terrorists than it was under the various dictators (Saddam, Gaddafi, etc)? Has the "aggressive" policy of "nation re-building" and promoting democracy accomplished the stated goal? Maybe it's time to think about alternatives?
The middle east is much more of a safe haven for terrorists since Obama pulled out of Iraq against the advice of his military commanders. How did that unilateral gesture of isolationism work out?
The thing is, they're sitting on our oil. Maybe that is an historical accident, but still...
Isolationism can only be effective when we don't fuck up the country in the first place. We can't go make a mess of things and then pull out and say "not my problem!"
America has not been "isolationist enough".
We NEVER should have been warring in Iraq, Afganistan or other ME venues.
I think we should pull all of our troops from the ME and let them kill each other in their dumbass religious wars as they have done for the last 1000 years... and as they will continue to do after we've gone. (America is 5% of the world population. We can't save everyone in the world from themselves, nor should we try.)
Re-deploy our troops on the American borders... THAT'S what NEEDS to be protected. Develop our own energy reserves to make us energy-independent... the ME's oil will be sold into the world market... America doesn't have to buy THEIRS, specifically.
Then...
1. Round up all illegal immigrants and deport them.... making room for American workers to have jobs.... even if they say, "I don't want to do that work or don't want to do that work for that wage"... TOUGH! Work or don't eat!! (Well, not exactly that... social support should be "3 squares and a cot" .... and if that's not enough for you, GET A DAMNED JOB AND PAY FOR YOUR LIFE YOURSELF!... we're not going to allow US citizens to starve or freeze to death, you know.)
2. Cut waaayyyy back on social subsidies so that unskilled are motivated to take the jobs left by departing illegals.
3. Oh, and BTW... balance the Federal Budget.
All tactic, no strategy.
Precisely... Once you've fucked the place up, you've got to choose between an indefinite military commitment with all of the human and other costs this implies or a significantly worse mess. So, personally, I blame people like Tony Blair and Dick Cheney who have, in spite of repeated warnings, created the situation where all the choices are bad. Moreover, there appears to be no accountability whatsoever for these people and they continue to preach their ideas.
Again, I stress that I am in no way excusing Obama. He turned out to be as just as bad, if not worse.
No, once you've f it up, you are not responsible for cleaning up the mess.
In all wars throughout history, the loser, who hopefully was in the wrong in the first place, paid reparations.
Go ahead and set me straight if i'm wrong and wars of past required the winner to clean up the mess and pay for what happened in the war.
Iraq had oil and they could have paid for anything we did. And they should have.
Just why in the hell do you think we're responsible for cleaning up the mess?
In all wars throughout history, the loser, who hopefully was in the wrong in the first place, paid reparations.
Go ahead and set me straight if i'm wrong and wars of past required the winner to clean up the mess and pay for what happened in the war.
Iraq had oil and they could have paid for anything we did. And they should have.
Just why in the hell do you think we're responsible for cleaning up the mess?